Tag Archives: films

On January 16th, the 18th Amendment went into effect and prohibition became the law of the land. Suddenly, it was illegal to transport and sell alcohol in the United States. As social reformers rejoiced, the government grew and ordinary citizens started to hoard whatever liquor they had. (Selling alcohol was illegal but drinking it was not.) Perhaps the people happiest about prohibition were the gangsters who now had a totally new market to exploit.

And finally, the AMPAS also elected a new president. After serving two successful terms as president of the Academy, Thomas H. Ince declined to run for a third term. The award-winning actor William S. Hart was elected to take his place, easily defeating producer Lewis J. Selznick. As President, Hart introduced one major change the Academy Awards. In recognition to the growing number of films being produced annually, he suggested increasing the number of best picture nominees from 6 to 10.

As for the awards themselves, 1920 was perhaps the first year in which the Academy attempted to fix a previous error. The previous year, Bolshevism on Trial had defeated D.W. Griffith‘sBroken Blossoms for best picture. When Griffith released the epic melodrama Way Down East in 1920, there was little doubt that this would be the year that a Griffith film would finally win the award for best picture.

Despite the fact that Way Down East‘s victory was something of a foregone conclusion, the Academy still made history with the nominations. Oscar Micheaux became the first African-American to be nominated for both best director and best picture for his film Within Our Gates. (Ironically, Within Our Gates was meant to serve as a repudiation of Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.) For her performance in Within Our Gates, Evelyn Preer received her second consecutive nomination.

The Awards Ceremony was held on February 20th, 1921 at the newly opened Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The ceremony was again hosted by comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Along with the Barrymore brothers, Arbuckle was nominated for best actor that year, though all three of them lost to Charles Ogle. However, Arbuckle did receive an honorary award, thanking him for his “service to the Academy.” Everyone agreed that Arbuckle had somehow managed to make the first alcohol-free Academy Awards ceremony bearable. Indeed, as the ceremony came to an end, there was no one as beloved in Hollywood, and perhaps in America, as Fatty Arbuckle.

In just a few months, that would all change.

Fatty Arbuckle, the most popular man in Hollywood

The Seventh Annual Academy Awards

(Honoring films released in America from January 1st to December 31st, 1920.

In 1919, as the Spanish Flu continued to infect and kill millions, the world tried to recover from World War I. After spending six months at the Paris Peace Conference, President Woodrow Wilson returned to the U.S. and launched an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to bring the United States into the newly formed League of Nations. On September 25th, while barnstorming across the nation in support of the League, a physically exhausted Wilson collapsed and never truly recovered. On October 2nd, a stroke left him partially paralyzed and blind in one eye.

Even before Wilson’s physical collapse, the U.S. population had reason to feel uncertain about the future. On January 6th, the wildly popular Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep. Before his death, Roosevelt had been widely expected to run for President in 1920 and hopefully return the U.S. to the peace and prosperity that it knew before the Wilson years.

The anarchist bombings also led to one of the greatest upsets in Academy history. When the Academy Award nominations were announced in January of 1920, most observers felt that the race was between Universal‘s Blind Husbands, United Artist‘s Broken Blossoms, and the Paramount action-comedy The Roaring Road, all of which received 7 nominations. Blind Husbands and Broken Blossoms were both prestige pictures and The Roaring Road was one of the most popular films of the year. As well, Broken Blossoms was directed by D.W. Griffith and many felt that it was finally time for a Griffith film to win best picture.

Instead, when the Fatty Arbuckle-hosted awards ceremony was held on February 20th, 1920 at the Hollywood Hotel, the awards for picture, director, and screenplay went to a low-budget film called Bolshevism on Trial. Based on a novel by Thomas Dixon (who also wrote The Clansman, the novel that inspired D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation), Bolshevism on Trial told the story of a misguided and wealthy activists who attempt to start a commune on an island off the Florida coast, just to have power seized by an evil Socialist agitator named Herman. Bolshevism on Trial may not have been as polished as the other nominees but it both tapped into the national mood and confirmed what many Americans believed about Marxism. Bolshevism On Trial was nominated for 4 award and won 3 of them, leaving many to wonder whether D.W. Griffith was forever destined to always be a contender but never a winner.

The second annual Academy Awards were handed out on January 20th, 1916. For the second and final time, the ceremony took place in the Empire Room of the Waldorf Hotel in New York City. Just as in the previous year, the awards were handed out after dinner and a speech from Academy President Mack Sennett. Again, the winners were announced before the actual ceremony and were given certificates of achievement. According to contemporary reports, the winners who were present all gave brief acceptance speeches but nobody bothered to record what anyone said.

Behind the scenes, the 2nd Annual Academy Awards were mired in controversy and drama. It all boiled down to one question: What to do about Birth of a Nation? Directed and produced by Academy co-founder D.W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation set records for both its running time and its popularity at the box office. It was also the first American film to ever be screened at the White House and was reportedly highly praised by President Woodrow Wilson. Many members of the Academy — including D.W. Griffith, who aggressively campaigned for his film — felt that there was no way the film could be denied the award for best picture.

However, there were other members of the Academy who felt that, as an organization dedicated to improving the image of the film industry, there was no way they could honor Griffith’s film. Birth of a Nation was a highly controversial film. An epic set during and after the Civil War, Birth of a Nation was pro-Confederate in its sentiments and it portrayed the Ku Klux Klan in a heroic light. Even by the standards of 1915, Birth of a Nation was a shockingly racist film. The film was protested by both the NAACP and social reformer Jane Addams. Following showings of the film, race riots broke out in Boston and Philadelphia. Several local censorship boards, citing concerns that the film was un-American and that showings would lead to violence, refused to allow the film to play in their cities.

When the awards were announced, Birth of a Nation only received one, for best engineering effects. An angry Griffith declined to attend the ceremony and his certificate of achievement still sits, unclaimed, in the Academy archives. Reportedly, Griffith held Mack Sennett responsible for the failure of Birth of a Nation to win best picture.

Instead, the award for best picture went to Regeneration, a film about a gangster (Rockliffe Fellowes) who is redeemed by the love of a good woman (Anna Q. Nilsson). A box office and critical success when it was first released, Regeneration is considered to be the first gangster film. Ironically, the film’s director, Raoul Walsh, played John Wilkes Booth in Birth of a Nation.

Along with honoring Regeneration, the jury awarded a special award to Giovanni Pastrone, the director of the Italian epic Cabiria. Cabiria was one of the most acclaimed films to be released in America in 1915 and was apparently given some consideration for the best picture award before the jury decided that the award should go to an American film.

Finally, the popular Mary Pickford won her first Academy Award for her performance in Madame Butterfly. Despite the award, Pickford always considered Madame Butterfly to be one of her least favorite of her many films.

The 2nd Annual Academy Awards

(All films released in the U.S. during 1915 were considered to be eligible. Only winners were announced)